Manar Elarmany’s Reviews > Islands of Abandonment: Life in the Post-Human Landscape > Status Update

“Our collective guilt over man’s impact upon the environment can, I feel, propel us in the direction of overtreatment, based on an assumption that we know what’s best for damaged habitats..”

Is the answer to our environmental problems a drastic decrease in human population? Because of insufficient resources?
Or isn’t it better to choose a different lifestyle that doesn’t require this much consumption of everything?
I don’t think overpopulation is the problem I think the problem is how we (companies mostly) have been using this planet and its resources with abandon and disregarding consequences.

“When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it hitched to the rest of the world. Tug hard enough, and we risk the whole beautiful tapestry coming undone.”

“Even if we were all to be wiped out tomorrow… we have set in motion evolutionary forces that will continue to act upon the genetic makeup of almost every other species alive on this Earth.”

“Human predation in general is thought to have accelerated the rate of trait changes in other species by 300 percent. We too find ourselves in an arms race with pesticide-resistant insects, herbicide-resistant plants, drug-resistant viruses, and antibiotic-resistant bacteria.”

The author also talks about how most elephants are no longer born with tusks due to excessive hunting by humans. Sad and scary.